


All the White Horses

by ectofeatures (TurntechKnight)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, M/M, Post-Sburb, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1471102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurntechKnight/pseuds/ectofeatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life after the game is an exercise in grammar: Grow into, grow apart, grow up.</p><p>Dave watches months go by in slips of paper and tries to find definition on his own. John is patient enough to wait, but not enough to stay rooted at his side.</p><p>John/Dave || Post-SBURB</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the White Horses

There's a moment of ether, when the game ends. You don't know how to describe it, because it's not like time travel and it's not like dying, not like sitting on the edge of a meteor with your toes dipped in paradox space and your body slowly numbing. It's like – okay, it's like the world and everything in it gets broken down to its square-ones, all atoms or amino acids or whatever the shit, leaving the four of you (the twenty of you? The twenty-four of you? It's hard to tell--) to float around in the aster like loosening coils of smoke.

No one is wholly themselves, just a cluster of clouds and fading consciousness as the world dissolves into colors and dust; maybe it's the delirium, but you think you feel something familiar at the fringes of your being as you black out, something warm and bright and _gosh, dave,_ he laughs, _i thought transitions through time and space or whatever were your thing!_

The world materializes, a brand new combination of atoms and cells, and he is no longer exclusively yours.

* * *

Jane tells you that she was baking a cake with her daughter (five years old this summer, with her mother’s eyes and just figuring out that fondant is not worth messing with) when she'd knocked her spoon a little too hard, accidentally triggering her strife specibus in the process. The clean-up was easy, if a bit rusty after so much time, and all in all she thought nothing of it – until her daughter shot her a few shy, curious glances. When the mix was done and in the oven, the kid nabbed a batter-soaked mixer and said thoughtfully, “Mommy, I didn’t know you could strife.”

There’s a pause on the opposite end of the line, short and sharp with the quiet crackle of static, before she adds, “I just – ah, I just found that funny, for some reason.”

“You should've seen Rose's kid's face the first time Kanaya broke out the chainsaw,” you say, even though it’s more of a private matter than either of you would care to admit. There’s still a sort of bond there, a matchstick-tip recognition that _you know, once upon a time, we all stood together at the edge of the world_ , and you understand the faded blue undercurrent that paints Jane's voice subdued. “The little shit clearly doesn't appreciate the benefits of a lumberjack lesbian mother.”

The laugh on the other end is so refreshingly clarion that you nearly join in. “Why, Mister Strider! Do I detect a hint of fondness creeping through that stoic facade of yours?”

“What? Shit's ridiculous,” you reply with a grin. “I mean, it's not like I like having a nephew or anything – God knows any spawn of Rose's is going to be an extra from The fucking Shining – but I guess it's pretty chill having a clean slate not corrupted by Top 40 to mold into someone with semi-decent taste. Not that Rose makes it easy, like apparently he listens to Mozart for fun? The woman's a menace, sent from the throes of uncool Hell to–”

“That's nice, Dave,” Jane says, damningly polite, and sometimes you forget she spent her developmental years dealing with your quasi-brother. “In any event, I suppose I should move on to my actual reason for calling before I keep you tangled in your phone cord for much longer – did you happen to receive an invitation in the mail this week?”

Your gaze shifts with an oceanic sort of weight to the stretch of paper lying half-opened on the mantle. “Yeah, a couple days ago. Let me guess – Dirk told you to tell me it wasn’t a joke.”

“I do hope that doesn't offend you – I mean, I won't pretend to understand your strange methods of interacting, or even that I particularly want to, but I'll admit that this does seem a little odd.”

“Nah.” You skim the gold-and-white designs of the invitation again, proclamations of life-time commitment emblazoned across the top in ever-flowing script. Jesus, he really went all out with this shit. You can't decide if you're proud or disgusted. “It's just how we work with each other. Wouldn't expect anyone to understand how hellaciously complex this shit is, don't blame yourself.”

You can hear her eyeroll through the phone – impressive, since you've only seen her a handful of times in the flesh. After the game spit you all back out, communicating through technology was less a necessity and more a barrier against trembling fingers and sour mouths. For some of you, anyway. “With that out of the way, I really should be going – I'm still holed up in the bakery, and the weather's absolutely dreadful. If I get caught talking on the phone while I'm driving, Jena won't stop complaining about tornado warnings for a month.”

“Sounds like her mother.” You recline on the sofa and wonder if Jane's really in the bakery or if she's in the office above it, filing paperwork and tidying up finances, and you fight the sudden urge to ask her how she can stand it, how she can keep within the confines of her skin in a pastel little office when once upon a time she was a god.

“Hoohoo, very funny,” she says dryly; then, “By the way, John dropped by the other day – how long has it been since you talked to him? He froze up when I asked about you.”

You reach for the apple juice on the table and take a swig before answering. “About ten months.”

“Ten months? Goodness, Dave, what kind of–”

“I'll see you at the wedding, Jane.” Click.

* * *

A voicemail:

um, hey! i know you've pretty much stopped picking up at this point, and that's cool, but i figure i should probably keep calling. besides, rose told me you listen to all my voicemails, so i guess you're trapped into listening! haha. uh, don't tell her i told you that, okay? anyway, i'm in milan this week and whoa, it is actually really pretty! i was going to say something about how i think you'd like taking pictures here -- lots of three-fourths profiling to be done or whatever it was you called it -- but there's actually an archaeology site a couple miles out that i think you'd like even more, you big nerd.

anyway, things are pretty lonely out here. i mean, i've got friends and stuff! but i guess it's just not the same when you don't get to save the world with them. besides, jade is still filming for that nature show of hers -- i have every episode set to tape, it's pretty exciting! -- and karkat got another new job so he can't take vacation time. lame!

but yeah, i should probably go, i guess. oh! and it took some hoop-jumping like you wouldn't believe, but i finally got your birthday present to send in time. i know you said i'll never top your dumbass aviators, but i think i may have gotten it this time!

it's funny to me how that package will probably have traveled farther than either of us have by the time it gets to you. not sure why! but it is.

* * *

Morning routines are pretty simple: shower, watch cartoons until the heat has your clothes sticking to your skin, rot your teeth with sugary cereal and equally sugary coffee, then whip out your laptop and work til lunchtime, or whenever Rose calls and nags you to get out of your apartment. Sometimes you get lunch or see a movie, but mostly you end up just talking. You make bets on how long she can go without making psychological assessments. She almost always loses.

You don't think she likes Houston much, with its shoebox apartments and slick-pulsing mugginess, but she was the only one to stay (or rather, come back -- she'd pissed off to Yale after graduation, the asshole, and you absolutely did not cry when you found out) after college. The four of you had clotted here, after the game, armageddon wedged in your throats and plagued by the sort of nightmares that only closeness could really quench. John was the one to suggest Houston; you're still not sure why, but at the time you were too grateful to question it. You'd missed your bedroom.

There was this one time, sitting on the edge of your apartment building with your legs dangling next to hers over the edge, the neck of a rootbeer bottle suffocating beneath your fingers, when you'd asked her why she came back to Houston if she hated it so much. She told you she would never hate it as much as you do, and yet you still own the same apartment, even now that Bro's moved out. You rolled your eyes and told her she just liked the excuse to wear short skirts.

It's not uncommon for you to go months without seeing the rest of them -- even the trolls have adapted to their human lives and bodies well enough by now to stop calling every 20 minutes -- but the lines are always open. You still have their phone numbers and chumhandles scrawled on post-its all collecting on the side of your fridge, clinging together in a hasty collage of slowly melting adhesive. As far as you know, most of them are still accurate, and after gaps in communication one will drop you a line or a pester filled with strings upon strings of colorful chatter.

In the end, you guess it's a sort of monument to your adolescence. While the contacts list on your Android is ever-expanding with business acquaintances and casual friends and occasional objects-of-affection-that-inevitably-died-down-into-friendships, the little gallery of nostalgia – the post-its, a few shitty pictures of Jade or Karkat or Terezi or Rose – remains frozen in time, a key to the gates of memory lane carefully obscured from casual view.

The exception to all this, of course, is Rose, who doesn’t have a post-it because she doesn’t need one; for every misplaced phone, transferred account, and service swap, her phone number has been smudged in ink on the palm of your hand until it’s committed to memory. You’re the only ones who regularly see each other anymore, you think, other than her alien beau and the some of the trolls, and this strikes you as oddly appropriate, as the world has always been just a little more accepting of sibling-hood than anything else.

You both work from home, most days, not so much out of laziness so much as out of the exercise of power. Rose finishes her novels early but her submissions are always two days past the deadline, a public darling and an editor's nightmare, and you – well, you're good at math, good enough that you managed to piss your way through college and end up moderately-respected at some financial firm in Houston. Rose tells you it's probably the experience with time travel, the sense of order and arithmetical logic. You tell her to shut the fuck up and let you read, dammit, this is finally getting good and she shouldn't ask you to edit if she really just wants to girl-talk over sweet and sour pork.

What you don't tell her is that she's probably right, because for all your artistic flair or whatever you called it as a teenager, you're ruthlessly competent at the number-crunching shit, and the competitive streak of a born-and-bred swordsman ascertains that you want everyone else to know it just as much as you do. When you do show up for work, usually for business meetings or corporate jargon, you make sure to cut an impressive presence: tall and well-spoken and meticulously put-together at all times, eyes sharp and unhidden. You're a gold-digging sorority girl's wet dream.

Still, for all that, it takes you a moment too long to answer when you're asked (usually by Jane or Terezi or someone who never watched the world end) what you're doing for a living nowadays, because there’s this great, hanging temptation to say that _That’s not important, I used to be a god and I saved the world with people who are on magazine covers, now, and a blue-eyed boy loved me once, I swear he did._

You pass by your old college every night at 7 P.M. sharp and eat dinner alone.

* * *

An old grocery list, margins thoroughly doodled in:

~~aj~~

~~doritos~~

~~free samples~~

lube

~~chinese take-out~~

(this isn't a grocery list, numbnuts. try again, or i'll cross out the fourth one, too.)

fruit loops

stuff for dinner?? idk whatever youre cooking

paper towels (i said i was sorry about that dont comment)

milk

aj

coke

eggs

(bluh, close enough. you're coming with me, though. and no riding in the cart this time!)

(<3)

(<3)

* * *

Rose teased you once that, since you had decided against going into paleontology, you were dedicated to making your apartment an interactive fossil instead. The plastic bottle of AJ that had flown past her head notwithstanding, it's pretty much true. You've gotten a bigger bed, some new tech to keep geezer status from encroaching, but everything else looks like you stirred up your old god tier powers to keep this place looking like douchebag haven until the next apocalypse. The paint's chipping, the door to the roof still clicks like it did when you were eleven, and there are still holes in the wall from strifes gone awry.

One day, you tell yourself, you'll at least ditch the cinderblocks.

The only other new addition to the apartment is a dresser shoved in the back corner of what used to be Bro's room (and, at one point, your future bedroom). It's a sturdy thing, three drawers (all empty) and some considerable shelf space on the top (cleared off), but you don't really see much of it. Once Bro moved and cleared all his shit out, it's the only complete room that is 100% different from how it used to be, and you don't like the way the emptiness settles on you. Like you've run out of time to do something.

The last time John stayed in your apartment for an extended period of time had felt a lot like what you imagined a normal high school summer would, even though you were both on the cusp of drinking age and spent most of your time in your bedroom while you tried to study. You acted more like teenagers than you had just after the game, anyway, spending an afternoon baking (anything but cake) because you felt like it or soaking in the mediocrity of your respective abilities to play vintage video games (which you did, often until your fingers were numb). Occasionally you would find a movie bad enough to offend even John's shit taste in cinema, popcorn flying at the television screen to decry a badly-delivered line as you curled up on the edge of your couch.

That was when he'd brought the dresser, moved your drawing desk from your bedside (since moved back) to clear up the room; that was when Bro moved out. That was when you all sort of thought John was staying.

The nights were hot enough that you almost never used sheets, but you would have covered John with them, anyway, a carry-over habit from days where you felt personally responsible for his survival -- would have, if you hadn’t been so mesmerized by the arc of his form sprawled against your own, thighs tightened around you and each breath rippling through the air like the sigh of the ocean.

Looking back, it wasn’t so much that you had a spoken commitment to each other – you didn’t really label your relationship, not after the game had bled into your psyches and put a question mark at the end of every motion. But whatever was there had been real, and in retrospect you can almost conceptualize what is was: the pads of John's fingers brushing over your skin like the rush of a volcanic breeze, not past or even present but rather _future,_ an incorporeal promise hanging like a pendulum in the night air.

* * *

A television interview overheard by an empty apartment:

i mean, i'm not really a travel kind of guy, but i'd be lying if i said it wasn't pretty exciting! and everyone else on the tour is pretty cool -- none of them have sued over a pie to the face yet, even though that joke's probably gotten a little stale by now. it's so weird to see so many talented people in one place. like, okay, liza carole, who can hit notes so high i can't even really match them on my piano! oh, and one of my best friends is a violinist, and i'd pay money for her to cross bows with adrian monroe, jeez, what a talent! and everyone else is just mindblowing -- like, i never really saw myself as in league with anyone this talented.

i think, at the end of the day, the weirdest thing is realizing that this hobby i had as a kid is pretty much my livelihood now. granted, i never sung back then! thankfully, since my voice at puberty would probably have sounded like a bunch of cats dying -- uh, rose, if you're watching this, don't be mad. anyway, i guess i started taking it seriously when i was about seventeen. i didn't really consider it a career path, but it was something that helped me get through some rough times. and my bo-- and my best friend at the time really encouraged it, got me some gigs at bars and clubs and stuff.

and yeah, i guess that's how i got here! kind of silly, in retrospect, but it meant the world to me, back then.

i really hope he knows that.

* * *

You see a lot of Kanaya, particularly now that she and Rose finally tied the the interspecies lesbian knot, but it's pretty rare that you actually _talk_ to her outside of Rose's company; in that regard, not much has changed since the meteor. There have been isolated incidents – like when she and Karkat seriously argued for one of the only times while Rose was out of town at a book signing, and you’d pulled out your most flaming tendencies trying to comfort her (read: ice cream binging, champagne you’d been holding onto for when Rose wasn't around, chick-flick watching, and – though she's sworn to secrecy on threat of death – shopping _)._

All the same, when she knocks on your apartment door, slick and sharply-dressed and a little bit terrifying, you're more than a little surprised.

“And _I’m_ the one with a spending problem,” you comment dryly when you slide into her new Lamborghini, the smell of leather and dealership-brand air-freshener still new in the air.

The engine purrs lowly as she slips in from the pavementside, her nails sharp and sleek hovering above the ignition. “Allow me my one indulgence,” she says. “It took ages for me to learn to work these abominations. I think a reward was in order.” You make a face at her calling a Lamborghini an abomination – you're not a car guy, not really, but you know enough that it sends some weird subconscious instinct shrieking in protest. “Besides, Rose is the one who said your monthly apple juice fund was reaching absurd height. I merely agreed.”

“Nectar of the gods, Kanaya.” Literally. Or it was at one time. You're not really sure about the fine print of godhood. “Get your head in the game.”

“Your propensity for drinking something generally considered for gr-- children is perplexing, but honestly I really don't care.” Her voice is blunt but lacking in vitriol, and you've learned by now that Kanaya's general persona can best be described as _Kool-Aid in a wine glass,_ so you wait for her to continue rather than snarking back. “In any event, believe it or not I didn't actually invite you out to criticize your choice of beverage.”

“Probably for the best,” you say offhandedly. “Given your past drinking habits and all.”

She rolls her eyes and cuts off a mini-cooper with a lightning-fast jolt. You fight the urge to clutch your seatbelt for dear life. “You're in a rut.”

You snort derisively and glance out the window, out at shadows playing stitchwork on skyscrapers, at the buildings that dominate the sky like a forest of glass trees. No lava, no consorts, nothing but people and sidewalk and miles of grey. “I just got a raise and I'm about to buy a sweet new ride – one I can _actually drive Jesus Christ stop signs don't mean tap your breaks and fuck the intersection in the ass_ – fuck, anyway, I'm doing better than ever, so thanks but no thanks for the attempted Doctor Phil session. I get enough of that from your wife.”

“I don’t know what brought it on exactly,” she continues. “I mean, if I'm not mistaken it's been nearly a year since you last spoke to him.” If she notices the way you flinch (which wouldn’t be much of a fallacy, considering that the gesture itself is virtually nonexistent, a slight erraticism in the rhythm of your fingers thrumming against car’s interior, no one would notice, no one but you and maybe--), she doesn’t let on. “But all of a sudden you’re stuck in the past and it's frankly a little worrying. Rose says you're stuck thinking about your glory days, and if you are – you should know the only cure is to go out and make more of them.”

“I'd tell you to stop spending so much time with Rose, but I guess she went and trapped you good with the whole marriage thing, the carpet-muncher. Anyway, you're both wrong. Dying twelve times an hour and busting my ass to save everyone else's -- only to end up trapped in an episode of Gossip Girl: Space Edition for three years and then spat back out into reality with not even a shitty _Thanks for Goddamn Playing_  -- isn't exactly my idea of 'the glory days.'”

“I'm not talking about the game, Dave.”

Your fingers still at your side.

“Oh.”

“Is there a reason that you haven’t spoken with him since he left for LA for the last time..?”

And you're good with words, good with taking up verbal space and diverting conversations, but you've spent enough time around Kanaya and Rose that they see right through you no matter how layered your metaphors get; enough time to know that you don't have a response for her, much less an answer.

(If you could, however, it would probably go something along the lines of: He's always been too much for me, but now it's different because he's too much for the rest of the world, too; one day he woke up and he was famous, and the way his tongue sticks out the side of his mouth a little when he's concentrating on a difficult chord wasn't something that was just for me to know. And he was never just for me, and I knew that, but I saved his life over and over again, and he saved mine without really realizing it, and he slept in my bed every night for a while, and I guess I could pretend. But now the whole world wants him. Everywhere is home to him and he was never afraid of rejection or acceptance or whatever the fuck, and he's the exact same fucking person he always was but I never learned to pin him down. The game spat me out and it was like my shoes melted into the pavement, and by the time I looked away from him long enough to realize it was too late to get unstuck.)

“These people,” John would laugh through a mouthful of Chinese take-out, waving his fork around like a conductor's baton. “– these people actually believe that I'm some kind of tortured soul or something, like I play the piano because I'm this thoughtful artist guy or whatever and not just because I like to mess around with chords and stuff. Like, call Jade and tell her to pack up her beakers, this is definitely some sort of weird magic shit.”

But you hadn’t really believed that that was magic; magic was John dressed in pajama pants and one of your old sweat shirts, hair ruffled as he plopped down on the couch and watched morning cartoons with you over breakfast. If you leaned over and kissed him because he looked tired or you liked the way your clothes looked on him or because you _felt like it,_ he would taste like the final dregs of a ridiculously sugary cereal rather than some expensive wine, and he would smile before wrapping his arms around your neck and returning the affection with sloppy enthusiasm.

In retrospect, you probably should have known the exact moment John would leave, the moment when, if at no other, you should have said something ( _I have to fly back to LA tomorrow to record, you know that – just forget the degree, Dave, come with me, I hate how empty the condo is there, it feels like it's going to swallow me whole_ ), rather than waiting for him to read signs you weren't sure you were sending off and gradually clipping back from you. But you didn’t, and for all that Rose tells you you're brilliant under all your masks, it’s always the same – with the Scratch, with Terezi and Gamzee, you're always the last to know.

* * *

An old e-mail, saved in an empty folder:

pfft, can you believe this place is making us get college e-mails? like jeez, it's like the 90s just grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to get a degree in web design. i hope you're taking good care of your tamagotchis, dave!

anyway, i figure pesterchum is sort of our place to talk about normal stuff, and this is kind of not-normal stuff. contain your gasps, eheheh. i guess i just wanted to say that i'm glad we're going to college together. i mean, i am totally going to miss rose while she's at yale and jade while she's studying abroad! but at the same time, there's something nice about it just being you and me. even if you did totally cop out on rooming with me (rude!) to live in your stupid apartment.

i know you feel like you didn't do everything right growing up and all, but that's all in the past, dude! besides, it is sort of hard to when you're out saving the world. and anyway, i don't know what exactly it is that you're looking for that you missed out on, but i don't think it's in your apartment.

you're at my door trying to get me to get pizza with you, so i should probably go before you slice my door off its hinges.

john

* * *

When the time comes for the wedding, you don your Sunday best (so to speak – you haven’t seen the inside of a church since Rose and Kanaya's wedding) and catch a first-class flight with Rose and Kanaya to New York City. You don’t waste time with vacationing; you're here fairly frequently for Rose's book deals, and you can only see so much of a city before a day watching On-Demand in a hotel room seems more appealing than sight-seeing.

The wedding, location notwithstanding, isn't much of a grandstanding affair. Fairly small chapel, fairly small ceremony, fairly conservative colors and decorations – not that you'd really expect anything less. Dirk is obsessed with irony and all, but he's been head over heels for this Jake kid since puberty, and you don't really think he'd tamper with his own wedding day in some big way just for shits and giggles. Besides, from what you've heard from Jane and Roxy and Dirk about Jake, he and Dirk have probably already had some weird adventure-wedding out in the jungle or some shit.

“It’s not a wedding until you’re a little bit drunk,” comes a too-familiar voice a good ten minutes into the reception. Jade is the last one you expect to replace Kanaya and Rose at your side once they sneak off – you'd thought she would still be somewhere in the other hemisphere filming her wildlife show – but there she is, bright-eyed with a faint tint to her brown cheeks. She offers you the glass in her hand with an encouraging nod. “I'm pretty much the farthest thing from a wine connoisseur ever, but it tastes nice!”

You forego the glass and pull her into a bear hug, careful not to let any wine spill. “Jesus, you're like eight feet tall, you're going to need every last drop to get a full buzz.”

She laughs and adjusts her glasses as you finally let her go, then pulls you into a noogie before you can protest. Goddamn amazonian speed. “Hello to you, too, Dave.”

You finally give in and take a glass when she plunges excitedly into her one of her adventure stories, all lit up like the Fourth of July, and any bad blood you worried might have popped up due to your lackluster communication skills is effectively debunked. She tells you about all the new studies she's been able to put forth by publicizing the wildlife on Hellmurder Island, about the fact that spiders really are everywhere in Australia, seriously, Dave, I mean everywhere, but not once, for all her colorful stories and animated actions, is your mind exclusively on her.

No, your mind is in a New York hotel room, one of questionable quality across the city from where you're staying now, back when NYC was new and bright and the backdrop for John as he walked Time Square, a coffee cup wedged between his hands. You kicked your suitcase under your bed after the first night, sick with the constant reminder that you'd have to fly back to Houston (away from Jade and Rose down the hall; away from the way John looked in the glare of omnipresent neon lights, all spun like cotton candy) in a mere handful of days. It was the first time you'd ever tasted champagne, and like most things it tasted better as a secondhand kiss, more intoxicating in traces at the corners of John's mouth than in the swigs you'd taken yourself.

“Do you remember when we snuck out that one night to go to that __horrible__ bar during senior year?” John asked you, shoulders shaking with laughter and cheeks candy pink. He was never much of a drinker -- neither were you, honestly -- but a record deal offer wasn't exactly something a fucking rootbeer was going to cover.  “And got so wasted that I threw up on your turntables the next morning?”

“Bet your fucking ass I remember – Christ, why did we do that, again?”

“We failed that impossible science final – well, I did. You got a seventy-one.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I still feel phantom pains on my back from the strife Bro and I had that night.”

“Seventy-one! Seventy-one, seventy-one, seventy–”

You tackled him, a tangle of limbs sprawled out in the slats of New York light. “Fuck off, dude.”

You kissed that seventy-one into John's spine that night – each individual vertebrae of it – and across his collarbone, over his chest and into the curve of his neck, everywhere that skin had been exposed, something across which to chronicle your nights together for when you both returned to the grey mural of a Houston winter. You pressed John into the cool, rain-chilled glass of the windowpane and hoped the entire city would see, see the silhouettes of stupid kids who could've been gods but chose a shitty hotel room in New York City instead.

It was one of your best nights, skin sticky with spilled champagne as you intertwined on a bed piled too high with white sheets. When John came, murmuring broken phrases into the curve of your neck and his mouth falling sweetly agape as you littered his hairline with kisses, you thought for the first time since the game ended that maybe you can handle being an adult, after all. (Or maybe just being the adult that knew every nuance and contour of John’s body fanned beneath you.)

Maybe if you'd stayed there, suspended in that moment, LA never would have been an issue – but no, you let the moment pass, and when that hotel room was little but a fond memory you were at an armistice. John wanted to move forward, wanted LA and records and an apartment in the city (something about the suburbs still reminded him, he had told you once, into the curve of your neck), and you – you wanted more time, wanted just one more year to piece together the posters in your bedroom and the records on your shelf and  _understand_.

It was like you were a teenager, and maybe you were – maybe you still are, just a piece of shit kid who still talks like he's fifteen and has nightmares every once and a while that leave him bleeding at night and can't get his legs to work long enough to scrape together his own identity.

And maybe you could've compromised. But you'll never find out.

You sip your wine there at your sort-of-brother’s wedding, catch up with old friends, then catch a first-class flight back to Houston with your sister and her wife, and everything is so aesthetically gorgeous that part of you is sure that you're supposed to be happy, that you're a fucking moron for not appreciating what you've got because you're so focused on the feeling of the Green Sun turning your bones to stardust and the way it felt the last time John kissed you.

Either way, you come home to an empty apartment.

* * *

A group of post-it notes, found roughly a year and seven months after conception:

i guess this is sort of stupid, because i don't think you'll ever find this -- i mean, pfft, when was the last time you even OPENED your breadbox? do you even know what it's for? jeez, dave -- but i kind of wanted to document that this morning i told you i loved you for the first time. you weren't awake, so you probably didn't hear it over your gross racecar-engine snoring, but it's true. it's always been true.

* * *

“I need to talk to you.”

You glance up from your laptop, arching a brow as Rose crosses her legs on down on the couch across from you. “Oh, shit, looks like the doctor is in. What's with the look, Doc? Don't tell me it's cancer, I've got plants to water.”

Rose rolls her eyes in a manner that is so very college, so very __Would you three tone it down to a semi-normal decibel? I realize I opened my apartment to you all out of a sense of friendship, but some of us have finals to study for__ _._ , but it doesn’t last. You straighten immediately, recognizing the silver rim of seriousness – almost verging on anger in its potency – in her demeanor. “You realize you can’t avoid him forever, Dave.”

You duck your head, suddenly excruciatingly fascinated by the graphics in Dragon Age 2. “Who.” Not a question. A roadblock. Because you've spent a year and a half watching John Egbert’s life in flashbulb glimpses like slides flickering past, and talking about him is the last thing you want to do, because the second you do you aren't in New York anymore – or rather, you aren't in your apartment, you're across the stretching seas of cars and glass houses and back in that hotel room again, only this time you're alone, left with nothing but the smell of his skin on the sheets.

"The mysterious benefactor who so generously left a dresser in your brother's bedroom." Her eyes could boil you alive. “What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of shit, Rose, I just don’t want to talk about bullshit that doesn't matter anymore.”

“How long are you going to keep doing this?”

“Doing _what_?”

And the mutual frustration builds up enough that she finally snaps, eyes flashing in anger that you've seen a million times before, but almost never directed at you. “ _Fucking yourself over_ ,” she spits, voice acidic and unforgiving, curling like a tendril of loose lightning. “You’ve been breaking yourself against him in increments since we were twelve, like some sort of ship on the rocks that just can't plot a corrective course, and I’m __tired of it, Dave-__ – especially now that the solution is so simple, so hopelessly–”

“And why is it _my fault_?” you say, snapping your laptop shut with a crack that would make you wince in any other situation. “All he wanted was for me to drop everything and leave, to follow him around like some cheap souvenir from his childhood like I did when we were kids. I have no fucking clue how to be anywhere but here, Rose, I have-- I just want to be my own person for once in my goddamn life. Believe it or not, I have no desire to spend my entire life defined by the fact that I just can-fucking-not get over my crush on Egbert.”

"Is defining yourself by the ghosts of your childhood really that much better? Or are you hoping that if you do the same thing day-in-day-out, the answer to being your own person for once in your life will just magically appear to you?"

"Fuck off, Lalonde -- just because you were interested in psychology when you were a fucking teenager and now you're married with a brat and a picket fence doesn't mean you're a goddamn self-help guide to fling at the less fortunate."

"Better a 20-something self-help guide than a 13-year-old without an identity for himself."

The door has gone unoiled since you were 17 and lets out a shriek of protest as it pivots shut behind you.

It's childish, and you _feel_ like a fucking 13-year-old when you do -- especially given that it's your apartment -- but it feels good, too, like snapping a cord. Like breaking a vase. Like chucking a sword out your bedroom window and watching it ribbon down, down, down, glinting as it spears some bird and clatters mutedly on the pavement. Good and a little nauseating. You can't deal with that shit right now.

Later.

(Later is also what you said when John told you the same thing, his hand iron in yours and his voice frustrated even as you pressed hickeys into his skin.  "You're just gluing yourself to the same old problems! Just forget about that for a while -- it doesn't matter if you don't really know exactly who you are. Does anyone, even? The important thing is that _I_ know you and _I_ know that I love you, so just put all the soul-searching shit behind you and move with me to LA. I don't care that you're not your brother, Dave -- I care that you're happy, and I don't think you're ever going to be happy if you stay here."

"I'm happy here _now_. With you."

"You're not happy. You're just not lonely anymore.")

* * *

A gift tag:

ho ho ho! okay, so remember the first christmas we had in college, and you had to stay a couple of days later than me for some project? and you ended up deciding to stay on campus for the entire break for god knows why? and i was so mad, but i didn't want you to spend christmas alone, so i brought a picnic basket full of christmas eve left-overs and drove back to campus that night. we had to steal plasticware and papertowels from the kitchens because i forgot everything but food, and we promised that we would scrape together a real christmas dinner some day.

i know we never got around to it (you burnt the turkey next time, and then the christmas after i totally spaced and put the salad in the freezer, etc.) and i guess we probably won't, now, so here's a gift hamper! they're apparently really common in europe -- it's got a bunch of pies and cider and basically everything in it, you just have to heat it up.

i still miss our college christmases, but i hope this will keep you from eating left-overs!

* * *

"Who are you, Dave?"

You don't open your eyes, don't even dredge up the willpower to regret giving Rose a key to your apartment. The world behind your eyelids is bright yellow and green, leaking in whorls and rivulets over your vision like watercolor rain on an umbrella. Fuck what Rose said, Tequila is awesome.

"Dunno," you say between your teeth. You burrow yourself further into the couch. "Who am I?"

A sigh, and then suddenly your head is being lifted; when it stops spinning and plops down again, everything smells like perfume and warmth. "Dave. Do you remember when I'd first started drinking on the meteor? And I got so horrendously sick for the very first time, and even though my hair was short enough to hold back with a headband, you insisted on holding it back anyway."

"Sappy."

"Hush." She strokes you hair for a moment, and you let her. It's been a while since anyone played with your hair. "A different approach, then. Who am I?"

The colors pulse behind your eyelids. "Rose, fuckin-- fuckin duh, you're Rose."

"And you're Dave. There! Case closed."

"Sh-shut up," you groan, and either she laughs or you left the TV on. You still have a TV, right? Yeah. "It's not the same."

You can picture her arching a brow, fair hair rippling against her dark skin. Trippy. "Oh? Then tell me -- what makes me me? What makes Jade Jade? What makes John himself?"

"I'm too drunk for this shit."

"We weren't exactly making headway when you were sober."

"Fine. Jade is Jade because she fucking. Loves flowers and fashion and shit and she's making that show now that's all nature science fuckery. You're a fucking pain in the ass but. You're my sister and you read and you're smart I guess and one time when I had a nightmare you let me make fun of your weird-ass wizard porn until I felt better. And John..."

"'And John?'"

"John is such a fucking loser, but he. He doesn't even think about that shit, he thinks about, like. Pranks and making coffee in the morning even though he doesn't drink it most days and sleeping in his gaming chair and playing his piano. And one time we were lying on the roof and stuff and he told me that he didn't know what he was doing, that he just wanted to move forward and forget, and he said he wasn't going anywhere without me but then he did."

She sighs and places her hand to your forehead like she's checking you for fever, and you peek up at her through blond lashes. She doesn't look worried. Just a little sad. "He tried, Dave, you know he did. You said -- the other day, you said you didn't want to spend your life defined by him. Can you really blame him for wanting his own life, too?"

"You don't get it, it's like -- I used to think about following him out to California all the time, even after he left, just fucking. Stepping on a plane, hello, this is your pilot for the day, this bitch has officially been hijacked motherfuckers. And I'd swoop into his apartment and kiss him or get him flowers or some dumb shit like that, and we'd buy a new apartment and get married or just. Be together. I don't fucking care. But I can't and he's gone and I'm still here."

"You could still go, Dave," she says, and it feels like a dagger in your ribs. "Your life doesn't immediately crystallize the moment you turn 25. Go. Talk to him. Do  _something_ that isn't just letting yourself crumble into the dust of your old apartment."

"Can't."

"Can."

" _Can't._ " You groggily lift your head out of her lap and stare at her (all three of her). "I missed my chance, Rose, fuckin duh. It's been almost a year, why the-- why the fuck would he want to talk to me again?"

She's quiet for a moment, and your stomach starts to shake queasily, whether from a desire for her to leave or to keep arguing you're not sure. "Three years," she says quietly. "Three years I watched you sit in the corner of the meteor and type one-sided conversations with him. You'll recall that at that point you hadn't even  _known_ him for three years, before the game started. We met when we were eleven."

"So?" you say. "The world's saved now. People move on."

"You don't." Ouch. "And you didn't then. And if I may -- Jade said he pestered you right back, like at any moment you'd break the laws of paradox space and respond with some shitty pop culture reference. I don't think much has changed for either of you."

You think, briefly, fleetingly, about the first night after John left, how you didn't cry or answer your phone, just lay in your half-empty bed and channel-surfed until you passed out and woke with a feeling of emptiness that rose, sharp and panicky, from your gut to your throat. You had taken him to the airport, said "seeya" when he turned to you and said, quietly, "Goodbye, Dave," didn't kiss him or hug him or take off your shades, but when his plane had disappeared from sight you sat on the terminal floor until Rose forced you back to the car.

You feel kind of like nothing has changed, since that moment; not in the way that your apartment hasn't changed or your job hasn't changed, but rather in the sense that you never really left that moment. When you were sitting there, a blue September sort of ache snarled around your ribs, settling into your bones as you watched the entire world move around you (too fast, not enough time) and your back slid slowly down the faded white-and-red wall. You went home and kept living, got lunch with Rose and Kanaya on Sundays and drove by your old college every day, but you never really stopped feeling that way, like you'd glued yourself to the floor of the world while the big kids grew up and built up lives around you.

"Stagnant," you say, and Rose closes her eyes and nods. "I don't know what to do."

"Act."

You stand.

"But wait until you're sober first, dear."

You sit.

* * *

A postcard:

the beaches in california are pretty and all, but i was out with some friends today and couldn't stop thinking about that one time we went to that really gross place on the gulf of mexico -- remember? the one with the hot dog stand that was supposedly vegan but tasted like fish, and you're not even vegan but you made us suffer through it, anyway. and i got really ridiculously sunburned (i know you say that israelis don't sunburn, but i think you were too, you big liar!) and we passed out in that cheap motel that smelled like puke and cigarettes and got sand in our sheets and stuff.

i'm kinda drunk writing this (whoops!), but even though this hotel is a lot nicer than the one we stayed at, i think it would be better if i stopped clinging onto old memories of you. and it would be, like, even more better if you stopped clinging onto old memories of you, too.

* * *

There's a little park caught in the crosshairs between your apartment and your alma mater, a convenient middle ground for impatient lovers. You're too old for curfew or for college rules, but you stay in your car anyway, chronicling the shades of green and grey cast in your headlights.

Up in one of the trees (you don't remember which; it's been too long) here, you and John had met for some shitty grab at romance or adventure or whatever the fuck, making complete asses of yourselves as you shimmied up into the branches. You'd felt ridiculous and awkward-limbed once you'd finally found a place to sit, but that mattered a little less when John laughed into your chest, then paused like he was breathing you in through the gauze of pine and heavy summer mugginess. The two of you were rarely silent, but you were then as he leaned up to kiss you, soundtracked only by the low and shallow rumble of the bottle of peach schnapps rolling against the branch.

Neither of you like peach schnapps; it was the thought, John insisted, that counted.

It's not a particularly vibrant memory, but you've kept it tucked safely against the hollow of your throat since the following morning, when you bought him breakfast and he had asked you through a mouthful of pancakes why you were taking all these boring math and business classes when you had a dictionary of things you'd rather be doing. You don't remember what you said in response, how you'd managed to evade that particular line of questioning, but you remember that you thought he knew, anyway, and you remember the wrinkle in the collar of his favorite yellow shirt and the shitty aristocrats joke he told while you waited on your coffee order.

You remember asking him how he could study music when it was something he could never really have; how he could put his fingers against a piano knowing someone better had done it before, and that someone better would do it again, and be content knowing he would never be able to measure his adequacy.

You remember him staring at you, thoughtfully, swallowing a mouthful of pancakes, and saying, "You know, Dave, I think you think too much."

* * *

 A hastily-scrawled post-it note pressed to the bottom of a box:

i don't really know if we're together at this point or not, but it's valentine's day and i've never really been with anyone else. i don't think i really want to, either.

anyway! i know this isn't much, but i know how much you love that ice cream place by the pier and couldn't resist the giftcard. get an extra scoop for me.

* * *

The ticket hits the table with a click of Kanaya's fingernails, and you do your damndest not to act completely surprised.

"Please refrain from downing another month's supply of Tequila," she says. Rose stands behind her, a regular iron lady in her dark blue cardigan. "Rose says alcoholism is genetic."

You lick your lips and press your index finger to the flat of the ticket, sliding it slowly across the table toward you. "Can you get a refund on this?"

"And why would we want to do that."

"Because I don't need it."

"Dave," Rose cuts in, sweeping into the seat in front of you. As an adult, she seems to have garnered some of the grace she emulated as a kid. You consciously remind yourself that she's still a dork. "I know you were drunk, but you'll recall you came to something of an epiphany the other night. I think enough time has passed without action on your part that it was time to intervene."

You stare up at her over the rims of your shades, the taste of something sweet on your tongue. "Rose," you say slowly. "I don't need this ticket."

"You need something. There's nothing for you here, Dave."

And she's right about that. There's nothing here for you, nothing except lonely mornings and evening drives past the last place John was ever yours.

But still.

"Rose, I don't need the ticket because I already bought one."

The sigh she gives is nothing short of exasperated, and you can't quite stifle the urge to grin at her.

* * *

A new e-mail, sent to an address coaxed from a frustrated authoress with copious amounts of rock candy:

so hey

this is p obviously a long time coming and i guess you have every right to just delete this as soon as you see this god awful hooker lipstick shade of red i picked out when i was a dumbass eleven year old, but im kind of banking on your inhuman ability to forgive peoples inane bullshit and if im right youre still reading so here goes.

im not completely great with the whole apology biz without the aid of deliriously sicknasty flow (rose said not to rap at you) (ps i already knew not to do that) so im going to save a lot of that for when i actually see you, but ive been pretty inexcusably not cool for the past year or so so the basics are pretty much this. im sorry for not answering your phone calls or gifts or notes. theres not really an excuse for any of that shit other than im a dumbass and didnt really know how to respond. like imagine putting one of your most batshit concertos or whatever in front of a six year old with a lite brite keyboard and multiply that times my romantic incompetence and youve pretty much got my ability to actually reply to anything youve sent my way. but still.

im really sorry.

i think that ive been sort of stuck in this hole since the game ended or maybe even before that?? and you were always trying to pull me out of it or like at least point it out to me, like "hey bro idk if youve noticed but youre currently up to your fuckin hairline in psychological issues and shit" but i guess it was one of those things i had to figure out mostly for myself. i just think i was afraid before like ive been afraid since i was a snot nosed kid waiting for my bro to chase away the monsters under my bed. i really dont know if im out yet, or if ive even really started. i just know that im not scared anymore. or at least not as scared as i used to be.

anyway im writing this in the airport and im about to have to pack up my shit and take off for the screaming deathtrap thats taking me your way (i still hate flying jsyk). im sure youve heard all about this from rose by now because she couldnt keep her mouth shut if her lips were stuck together, but im going to be at that ihop rose says you like (the one right down the road from your apartment??) tonight at like seven and if you could be there so we could talk and stuff that would be aces.

dave

* * *

 

God tier powers notwithstanding, you're a shit and a half to deal with on a plane, so you hit the pharmacy for a couple of pills beforehand and let the flight pass in a mildly uneasy twilight.

You read in a book once (or maybe Rose did and just told you about it) that the only thing that can keep you in love with someone forever, even when you're not answering their calls or notes or when you're stuck on a meteor for three years hurtling through space, is the right memory. You made the mistake of choosing this one: 5:42 on a day that tasted like cherry Coke and looked like iced tea, a wash of late-brewed sunlight over the Egbert apartment porch during the last days of your senior year. He was talking and chewing on the end of his pencil in lieu of actually doing work, and you were looking at him, over the rim of your shades, the dip of the sun wrapping him in a brown-sugar warmth.

You weren't obvious, but for some odd reason he noticed, and for some odder reason he halted his train of thought, staring back at you thoughtfully. When he noticed, he looked down sharply, and you could imagine the curve of his lashes against his freckled cheeks even as his specs obscured them from you.

Under the table, he put his hand in your own and kept it there, sweaty and awkward and too sudden to be anything but impulsive.

You kept on with your homework, and he went back to talking about franchise reboots.

The lock of your hands remained a constant weight on your thigh.

* * *

A text message:

take off your shades, dumbass.

* * *

You take off your shades.

He's standing at the doorway of an IHOP in one of his old college sweatshirts, like he wasn't just on tour in Milan a handful of weeks ago. You feel like your ribs are about to cave in, and his face breaks into a smile, one that's unsure and confused a little reluctant.

"Hey," he says breathlessly as he sits down at the booth across from you, and somewhere at the base of your skull you feel yourself moving, a videotape fast-forward as you catch up with the rest of the world from your starting place on an airport floor. "I -- hey."

"Hey."

You're not really sure if you should talk first or if he should, so you just stare at each other, search for discrepancies between your current selves and your memories of each other. He looks the same -- a little clearer, a little more defined in the way he walks and presents himself, but he's the same boy you kissed in a tree and spent a night with in New York City. You wonder if he regards you the same way.

"This can't--" he starts, then cuts himself off and looks at the syrup selection on the table. "Are you going back?"

"I don't know," you admit. It feels like an arrowhead lodged in your throat. "I don't -- I don't think so, no. I still don't know what I'm doing."

"Neither do I." His voice is plain, and when he smiles at you it's toothier than before, a laugh lingering at the corners of his mouth. "I told you, Dave -- you think too much."

You smile back at him in disbelief, feel your fingers curl at the edge of the table. "I'm a veritable thinking machine, Egbert, what can I say."

You order your food (John still gets pancakes even though it's 8:30; you settle on a coffee but let John force you a piece of sausage for the sake of a blowjob joke) and eat in near silence, but you think that's okay, too, the way he looks at you curiously across the table as though he can't believe you're really there. You tell him you miss him, and that you're sorry, and that you miss him. He rolls his eyes and tells you to stop apologizing, dumbass, you're both here now and that's the point.

"So you never told me," he says through a mouthful of blueberry pancakes, "--you never told me. If you ever really found out who you were." His voice is teasing, but you've kissed him and you've read his messages over and over again and you know when he wants an answer.

"Nah," you say, because it's true, but the way he grins at you from across the table tells you that's okay, that you have time.

"S'cool.  _I_ know who you are, and you're kind of a total nerd. You're not missing out on much."

He laughs and you kick him under the table, and outside the windows Los Angeles whirs on without knowing you're there, without seeing you smile at him or watching him settle back onto your bones.

And when you grab his hand across the table, he doesn't let go.

**Author's Note:**

> an exercise in style written on the final dregs of a bad sinus infection. hope you enjoyed!
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](johncrocker.tk)


End file.
